Tag Archives: Afghan National Army

The US government and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) finally inked a bilateral security agreement (BSA) on 30 SEP 14 that will leave a residual US military force of 9,800 – 10,000 personnel in the country. Since the signing of the BSA the US government has been fueling the mainstream media with talk about how it may boost the chances for resuming peace talks with the Taliban by “demonstrating to the insurgents that they cannot hope to achieve a military victory.” We strongly disagree with this dangerously naive view of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, and submit to the American people that the presence of US military personnel in the country is irrelevant. Why? Because the central government will fall whether a residual force is there or not. The only thing a continue US military presence will do is delay the inevitable.

So keeping this in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody that we had the customary “friday afternoon information dump” with the Obama administration authorizing an expansion of the US military’s residual force in Afghanistan starting in 2015 – complete with the same restrictive rules of engagement (ROE) that have led to so many deaths over the past 6 yrs in the country.

Whereas the US government should’ve kept a residual force in Iraq, the opposite is true for Afghanistan. Here’s some of the primary reasons:

1. The Afghan people have no national identity. Where the average Iraqi (with the exception of the Kurds) identifies as being “Iraqi,” the Afghans’ loyalty falls in line with the following: Family, tribe, ethnic group, religion, nationality – all in this order. National identity is so far down on the totem pole that its barely a blip on their radar, and that’s one of the reasons why GIRoA can barely control Kabul. In other words, you’re more likely to find an Afghan who will identify as a being a member of the Zadran or Shirzai tribes than you will one who will identify himself as being “Afghan.” That’s a big problem to overcome in a country where unity is such a foreign concept. The UK and Soviets both tried – and failed in doing exactly what’s being attempted here. Should we really expect things to be different? Remember, even before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the central government was having difficulty maintaining its grip away from the capital.

2. Insider attacks. The concept of insider attacks have become a fixture in the enemy’s TTPs in the country – and enlisted men aren’t the only targets. Senior US military officers have also been targeted, with the most recent incident being the attack that led to the death of US Army MG Harold Greene. We assess that the restrictive ROE and ludicrous policy of “cultural sensitivity training” so as not to “offend” our Afghan National Army (ANA) counterparts will not prevent future insider attacks. Furthermore, the only reason there has been a drop in these attacks this year is because of the US drawdown. The ANA are now taking the brunt of insider attacks, and we have several contacts who have served in the country – some of which are still there– who have informed us that many of these incidents go unreported so as not to paint a “negative picture.” We had problems with the IA being compromised by the former regime and IRGC-Qods Force proxies, but never experienced attacks on this scale. It’s also worth noting that in the final days of the Soviet occupation, the Soviet Army was experiencing several insider attacks by Afghan military officers who defected to the Mujahidin. In fact, they saw an increase towards the end of their mission embedding advisors as whole units defected to the Mujaheddin.

When he met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Washington last Friday, Barack Obama said this[1] about the war in Afghanistan: “We achieved our central goal … or have come very close to achieving our central goal, which is to de-capacitate al-Qaeda, to dismantle them, to make sure that they can’t attack us again.”

He said this four days after a Muslim imam who was a soldier in the Afghan National Army opened fire[2] on a group of his British “allies,” murdering one of them and wounding six. The Taliban, al-Qaeda’s partner in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, which was yet another in an ever-lengthening string of “insider” attacks by Afghan forces against those who are putting themselves at risk to train and assist them. The BBC reports[3] that “in 2012, more than 60 Nato service personnel, and a quarter of the British troops who died in Helmand, were killed in such attacks.”

The Taliban is not al-Qaeda, although the distinction on the ground in Afghanistan may be exceedingly fine, too fine to be discerned by the average NATO soldier when the Afghan he is trying to teach how to be a military man turns the gun he has just given him on his benefactor. In any case, the appalling fact that “a quarter of the British troops who died in Helmand” perished in such attacks indicates that the enemy in Afghanistan is far from being either “de-capacitated” or dismantled, and still has the ability to attack us.

Nonetheless, Obama officials keep doing the victory dance over an al-Qaeda that they repeatedly imply is on the verge of extinction. Jeh Johnson, general counsel at the Defense Department, recently said that “military pursuit of al-Qaida” should end soon[4]. His reasoning was apparently that al-Qaeda is now so severely damaged that we will soon reach a “tipping point” after which military action against them will no longer be necessary, and local police can handle it.

This astounding manifestation of an overconfidence of Baghdad Bob proportions, or else of a capitulation attempting to disguise itself as a victory, is bitterly ironic coming at a time when al-Qaeda is anything but on the ropes: in fact, it is “carving out its own state[5]” in Mali, with so much success that last Friday the French launched airstrikes in hopes of stopping its advance and its consolidation of power in the vast areas it already controls.

Viewed alongside the Obama administration’s unstinting support for the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt and support for jihadist rebels elsewhere, along with its active work to further the agenda[6] of Islamic supremacist Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the U.S., this raises questions about whether Obama is preparing to abandon the last elements of any U.S. resistance to jihad in any form.

A proposed new handbook for soldiers serving in the Middle East reveals an alarming level of political correctness that infests the military chain of command. The 75-page document suggests that American ignorance of Taliban culture is chiefly responsible for the spate of so-called green-on-blue attacks by Afghan trainees on their American trainers, that have claimed the lives of 63 coalition troops this year alone. The manual is still in the drafting stages, but an article published by the Wall Street Journal reeks of the typically leftist “blame America first” mentality that should enrage every American.

The leaked manual, characterized by the WSJ as the “final coordinating draft,” offers a list of “taboo conversation topics” soldiers should avoid. These including “making derogatory comments about the Taliban,” “advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia,” “directing any criticism towards Afghans,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct” or “anything related to Islam.”

In short, a combination of self-censorship and subservience to Islamist culture – self-imposed dhimmitude if you will – is seen as the key to countering the murderous behavior of Afghan trainees.

The handbook continues: “Bottom line: Troops may experience social-cultural shock and/or discomfort when interacting with [Afghan security forces,]” it states. “Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [troops] to more effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead toward green-on-blue violence.”

You know what really facilitates green-on-blue violence? Armed Afghan trainees in the presence of their unarmed American counterparts. Unbelievably, until the policy was quietly rescinded last August, American soldiers were required to remove their magazines from their weapons, while quartered inside bases with their armed Afghan trainees. That insidious policy was promoted as a “gesture of trust” directed towards our Afghan “partners.” It took 21 deaths in 2011, followed by an additional 40 deaths in 2012, for military brass to reach the painfully obvious conclusion that it wasn’t working.

In September, the training of Afghan troops was temporarily suspended. It was then Americans got their first hint regarding the mindset that has apparently reached fruition with this handbook. Islamic “sensitivity training” was stepped up.

A list of orders troops were expected to obey–or face severe punishment–included the following: Wear surgical gloves whenever handling a copy of the Koran; never walk in front of a praying Muslim; never show the bottom of boots while sitting or lying across from a Muslim, considered an insult in Islam; never share photos of wives or daughters; never smoke or eat in front of Muslims during the monthlong Ramadan fasting; avoid winking, cursing or nose-blowing in the presence of Muslims, all viewed as insults; avoid exiting the shower without a towel; avoid offering and accepting things with the left hand, which in Islam is reserved for bodily hygiene, and considered unclean.

A senior US Army intelligence official illuminated the insanity. “The Afghans that know we’re doing all this PC cultural sensitivity crap are laughing their asses off at our stupidity,” he contended.

The Wall Street Journal reports this week about a new draft handbook for US troops in Afghanistan designed to prevent their Afghan “partners” from murdering them. (And yes, we’ve seen this same materialbefore.)

The problem, according to the Army, is “ignorance of, or lack of empathy for Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms” on the part of US troops.

The solution, according to the Army, is for troops to accept these same Muslim and/or Afghan norms — or else be killed. In effect, then, Uncle Sam is ordering Americans to submit to Islam or die — exactly the choice offered to infidels vanquished by jihad. As far I can tell, the main difference is Uncle Sam will require them to salute while submitting.

I simplify, of course, but I do not exagerate. Say, Joe American hears about boys being sodomized by Afghan Army personnel. Such pederasty is in accordance with “Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms.” According to Uncle Sam, Joe American must say nothing, must ignore the issue altogether — or risk being killed.

Christians and Jews who have lived under Islamic law across the centuries would recognize the diminished state of the American soldier circa 2012 as that of the classic dhimmi: the non-Muslim subject to Islamic law; his silence, his acquiesence the humiliating price of existence. Similarities to the janissaries, the Islamized forces stolen as children from Christian populations by the Ottomans to enforce Islamic law under the caliph, are also increasingly evident.

In our time, we may also understand this as another iteration of the Hair-Trigger Moderate (introduced back in The Death of the Grown-Up). The syndrome describes the society-wide phenomenon of curbing speech about Islam to prevent something, anything from setting the hair-trigger moderate off (tick, tick, tick…). This should, but doesn’t, reveal the “moderation” to be the fraud that it is. We saw this when George W. Bush recanted the word “crusade” after 9/11/01 (mustn’t offend, or else alienate our “friends”). We see it in this Army draft manual in 2012 (mustn’t offend, or else receive a bullet/axe in the head). We see it everywhere in between: in the elimination of “jihad,” “Islamic terrorism,” etc., from contemporary debate, in the Danish cartoon “crisis,” in government prosecutions and persecutions of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in Austria, Lars Hedegaard in Denmark, Tommy Robinson in England, in the Obama administration’s scapegoating and incarceration of the maker of “Innocence of Muslims,” in the “Istanbul Process.” Such self-gagging reflects the influence — the ascendance — of Islamic law. It reflects our own rush to dhimmitude.

And especially so in the US military, now mired in Islamic quagmires for more than a decade. Other “cultural norms” US forces must accept without objection include dog torture, desertion, drug use, and even sympathy for the Taliban.

Yes. Among the Army draft handbook’s “taboo conversation topics” are “making derogatory comments about the Taliban.”

You can rub your eyes, but that’s what it says. The US and Afghans are partnering in the first place because We and They are supposed to have this common enemy, the Taliban. But say something bad about the Taliban and your “brother in arms ” might get mad enough to kill you.

On first glance, we can read this as evidence of Uncle Sam’s certifiable dementia. But maybe we should think of it instead as a clear admission: Uncle Sam knows we have met the enemy and he is … in our pup tent. Uncle Sam knows our Afghan “allies” have more in common with the enemy than with Us, the People, but he continues with the doomed, damned mission anyway. Why? Have we been subverted to Islam’s ends? In a word, yes. Is there hope of reversal? Not much, not really, unless something changes in the body (and brain) politic. When/if that happens, we might look back on this Army draft handbook as plea for help: Uncle Sam crying out to be rescued from the tiny band of extremists that has seized control of American interests.

An American hero, Colonel Harry Tunnell IV, Commander of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, documented the truth about the war in Afghanistan.

What Obama is really doing in Afghanistan is treasonous.

Dated August 20, 2010, a letter was written to John McHugh, Secretary of the Army, signed by Colonel Harry Tunnell IV. In the letter, four significant factors about military operations in Afghanistan were revealed.

1. When US soldiers arrive in Afghanistan, they are told that they are fighting for the Afghan people:

“Soldiers join the military today to protect the United States, yet they are told once in Afghanistan that we are fighting for the Afghan people – this is a rather mercenary outlook and ignores the fact that the United States was attacked September 11, 2001.”

“The idea that Afghan forces can lead operations such as Marjah, as was touted in the media when the operation began, is pure fancy.”

“As part of our formula for success we place a remarkable amount of emphasis on the Afghan Security Forces without understanding the men who make up that force. It is very unlikely that we will be able to provide Afghans with a level of education and training to make them an independent and reliable force that can deny Afghanistan as a safe haven to terrorists…. The Soviet Union’s attempt to create a professional independent military collapsed as soon as the Soviets withdrew (from Afghanistan), which is what contributed to the ascendency of the Taliban. This should provide an obviously cautionary tale.”

“An overview of a few cultural behaviors of Pashtu men might help one make an informed assessment about the efficacy of plans requiring independent performance from Afghan Security Forces – to determine if the objective is consistent with the reality. This cultural information is well known, there are numerous anecdotal reports, and there is a growing body of research from Human Terrain Teams and others.”

“… Afghan security forces… lack of technical skills… Out of a class of ten at our recent academy to train a Fire and Rescue Service for Spin Boldak District, only two of the trainees had ever driven a vehicle – and that is giving credit to the trainee who had driven a tractor once or twice in his life. Even simple tasks… present challenges.”

“Attempts to integrate women into the security forces… Afghan males are among the greatest misogynists in the world. The Burqa is not a Taliban invention; it is a Pashtu cultural norm.”

“Health and hygiene will not be maintained at an acceptable level… Afghan military units – particularly small outposts – are bastions of filth.”

“Aberrant sexual behavior is acceptable. Considering the misogynistic culture… There is an acceptance of pedophilia that is wide spread and boys are sometimes kidnapped. Leaders have been known to sexually assault male subordinates…”

“NCOs… are largely illiterate.”

“…the population does not like how the Taliban deliver but the incontrovertible fact is that the Taliban are Pashtu and their cultural norms are the same as any other Pashtu male… In fact, religiously inspired Pashtu movements are a traditional part of life in southern Afghanistan. The British… had a nickname for them: “Mad Mullah Movements”. The most frequently ignored fact is that the average farmer in southern Afghanistan will appreciate far more what Mullah Omar is proposing than what we are…”

3. US military resources are misappropriated, leaving our US soldiers ill-equipped and vulnerable to greater risk of death and injury.

“Formations that are assigned maneuver tasks without the requisite training or equipment will suffer increased and unnecessary casualties.”

“There are two important things to note: (1) this mission, to secure Kandahar City and its environs, was exactly how American forces were arrayed before being dispatched in the ill-conceived freedom of movement mission and (2) all of the maneuver was done by United States Army units – an extravagant use of tens of millions of American taxpayer dollars to placate British units and commanders.”

“In addition to marginalizing American leaders, British forces take advantage of American resources such as Full Motion Video from Unmanned Aerial Systems, Route Clearance Packages, and other capability that should go to American soldiers. We had instances when these tools were denied to American troops in contact because they were not released from British control (even though they were observing no enemy activity). A more direct example of disregard for Americans is the manner in which Task Force Helmand addressed the catastrophic IED strike on an American engineer vehicle supporting their operations. The vehicle was attacked with an IED and one US Soldier was killed. The killed and wounded were evacuated, but the remaining Soldiers were left for several days on the disabled vehicle before recovery…. American engineers were eventually forced, at great risk, to get the equipment themselves – having another Route Clearance Package battle damaged in the process. Another instance… when conducting a joint resupply patrol with the British and was abandoned half way through the patrol. The British took the American Route Clearance Package and simply left. The engineer task force sent two Route Clearance Packages to recover this BSB patrol – it took two because the first one was blown up.”

“The denial of American resources to American soldiers that is commonplace is heart-breaking. The United States and Romania allow military personnel to travel on aircraft that do not have armor or defense capability, but several other partner nations do now. The result is that foreign military members are frequently prioritized at a higher level to fly on United States military aircraft which takes seats from Americans who are left to fly civilian contracted air. We expose our own service members to greater danger for the convenience of our partners and the American taxpayer, who has provided this capability for the protection of Americans, is deceived.”

4. Rules of engagement were changed under Obama’s command, thus ensuring greater risk of death and injury to our soldiers.

“Our potential for greater coalition casualties does not have to be inevitable, but due to our flawed approach to operations we wind up enabling our enemy. The population-centric approach which places the population as the center of gravity is applied to the point of absurdity. The enemy is entrenching himself among the civilian population as we cede to him territory and lines of communication. Our poor military approach, inadequate tactics, and haphazard operational art are compounded by NATO partnership in general and British leadership specifically. A gross lack of concern for subordinates manifests in guidance that “zero” civilian casualties are acceptable and coalition soldiers may have to be killed rather than defend themselves against a potential threat and risk being wrong and possibly resulting in injury or death of civilians – a verbal order from MajGen Carter.”

“Population-centric approaches to war have resulted in senior officers that are almost pacifistic in their approach to war; while they may have a public persona that seems offensively spirited, that is not the reality when they are issuing guidance to subordinates.”

“It is clear that US Army units are employed in ways that are grossly inconsistent with sound military tactics.”

“Related to the emphasis on the population, and ignoring an improved capability against the enemy, is the contempt for technology… We are far behind where we should be and this has contributed to increased American deaths and non-combatant casualties while our enemy retains freedom of movement and maneuver locally, regionally, and internationally.”

These truths in Colonel Tunnell’s letter are corroborated by the dramatic increase in US soldier fatalities, injuries and suicide under the Obama regime. As recorded by ICasualties, here are the number of fatalities and wounded to date:

US Soldiers – Fatalities are now up 410% under Obama. (an average of 401 US soldiers per year under Obama versus 79 per year under Bush).

US Soldiers – Wounded are up nearly 1200% under Obama. (an average of 4,010 US soldiers per year under Obama versus 330 per year under Bush).

In addition, US soldier suicide rates have increased to levels never seen before. This began when Obama took over as Commander-In-Chief in 2009. Here is a June 2012 article. Here is a January 2010article which describes the 2009 suicide rate as follows:

“…the toll of military suicides last year was the worst since records began to be kept in 1980.”

Recall that on the campaign trail in 2008, Obama told the American people that Afghanistan was the war we needed to be fighting. The media promoted this and the majority of Americans unfortunately believed it, along with all the other lies, and elected this man into the Presidency.

AP Photo: Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley Jr.’s father Greg, foreground, and mother Marina are escorted from St. Agnes Cathedral after his funeral Mass, Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012, in Rockville Center, N.Y.. Buckley Jr. was barely 21 years old when he was killed in an attack by a policeman in Afghanistan.

Paul Sperry rakes the Pentagon response to jihad inside the wire — more “sensitivity” training — in the New York Post this week (must have been Prince Talal’s day off).

Top officials believe culturally offensive behavior is the motivation behind the killings, so it’s stepped up Islamic sensitivity training for our troops.

“Top officials” should be relieved of duty, ASAP. They have lost their minds if they ever had any. Or, to be more accurate, they have adopted, internalized the Islamic mindset to a point beyond apology and beyond reason. Reality check: Normal, mainstream Afghan culture includes child rape, pederasty, “seven-day shit suits,” cruelty to animals, enslavement of women, and death to apostates, just to hit some highlights. Such institutional depravity, however, is the New Normal to the ideological zealots in charge. They don’t see it, and can’t imagine the effect of it on Western troops, even when their own internal reports flag such native practices as dog torture as “stressors” that lead to “serious social altercations” between US and Afghan soldiers. These and other resounding features of culture clash are officially hushed up lest the irreconcilable differences between Islam and the West become openly acknowledged, and the bankruptcy of the past decade of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan becomes the open national scandal that it should and must become.

Thus, our generals burble on about nose-blowing and shoe bottoms, announcing that deviations from the Islamic way of nose-blowing and handling shoe bottoms (“cultural affronts”) are motivations for murder. (This is the same Islamic mind-set that informs the White House and media position that the Mohammed video is “causing” the Islamic attacks on US embassies.)

Sperry’s op-ed continues:

If you don’t want to be shot in the back by your Afghan training partners, the Pentagon advises, don’t offend their religious sensibilities. Don’t kick your feet up on a table, for instance, and never ask to see a picture of their wives and kids. “There’s a percentage [of attacks] which are cultural affronts,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said in a recent interview.

“Cultural affronts,” general? Read about the hostility Marine LCPL Greg Buckley Jr. encountered in an Afghan trainee before Buckley’s murder by an Afghan policeman last month. Greg told his father he didn’t think he would make it home alive — from the war zone of his own base. He told his superior officers that “one day they are going turn around and turn those weapons on us.” His superiors forced him to apologize. Two other Marines were killed in the same attack that took Buckley’s life.

Dempsey has no answer to this jihad because he has been trained, meticulously conditioned, not to see a jihad. As a result, he presses more “Islamic traditions and values” (child rape? pederasty? baksheesh?) on our troops. More Islam, more deference to Islam, becomes the only “solution” he and his brother brass and civilian leaders can think of. They are all hostages to jihad and prisoners of Islam.

Dempsey echoes the concerns of Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Afghan National Army’s chief of staff, who earlier this month argued both sides need to do more to “teach” foreign troops Islamic traditions and values to reduce the chance of violent reactions to cultural slights.

“It is our duty to teach this to them. Our indifference about these issues causes the incident,” he said.

How about just converting Western forces to Islam and be done with it? Then, Gens. Dempsey and Allen could lead a Muslim US-ISAF and serve the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as modern-day “janissaries.” (Janissaries were elite troops of the Ottoman Turkish empire comprised of Christian boys cruelly seized as “tribute” from their Christian parents and forcibly converted to Islam and Ottoman allegiance.) “Insider” attacks would cease because an Islamic US military would be “insiders,” too.

It’s happening:

To avoid offending them, US commanders are putting troops through intense Muslim sensitivity training. Among other things, they’ve been ordered to:

* Wear surgical gloves whenever handling a copy of the Koran.

* Never walk in front of a praying Muslim.

* Never show the bottom of boots while sitting or lying across from a Muslim, which in Islam is considered an insult.

* Never share photos of wives or daughters.

* Never smoke or eat in front of Muslims during the monthlong Ramadan fasting.

* Avoid winking, cursing or nose-blowing in the presence of Muslims — all viewed as insults in Islam.

* Avoid exiting the shower without a towel.

* Avoid offering and accepting things with the left hand, which in Islam is reserved for bodily hygiene and considered unclean.

Troops who violate the sensitivity rules face severe punishment.

Sperry does find a couple of sane military sources. Would that “President Romney” puts them in charge.

Military officials who have done tours in Afghanistan are outraged that brass would even suggest US troops are partly to blame for their own murders.

“I would like to see a public affairs officer explain to the press where showing the bottom of your shoe to a Muslim or shaking with your left hand was legitimate grounds for murder,” growled one US Army official.

They say their Muslim partners would still resent them even if they followed their Islamic protocols to the letter.

“The cultural affronts excuse is a bunch of garbage,” a senior US Army intelligence official told me. “The Afghans that know we’re doing all this PC cultural sensitivity crap are laughing their asses off at our stupidity.”

Explained the intelligence official: “They’re killing us because we’re ‘infidels’ occupying Islamic lands. It’s what the Koran and every imam over there is telling them, and no amount of cultural sensitivity is going to stop that or change the fact that we’re ‘infidels.’ ” …

They’re killing us because we’re “infidels.” Period. The only solution is immediate separation and withdrawal to a new line of battle: the West.

Suddenly, a murderous threat has intensified in Afghanistan: American servicemen are being killed there at an accelerating rate by Afghans who ostensibly are their allies.

These attacks have been dubbed “green-on-blue” incidents, an antisceptic and deliberately inoffensive way of describing the treachery of Muslim natives (designated by the Islamic color green) against our folks (the blue forces). So serious a threat are such murders “inside the wire” deemed to be that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Martin Dempsey, went to Afghanistan last week to assess what is being done to prevent them in the future.

That challenge is made considerably harder by the fact that President Obama’s strategy for extricating the United States from the war in Afghanistan is to have U.S. personnel train, advise and otherwise help Afghan army and police units assume responsibility for its conduct as we rapidly pull out. Consequently, Afghans willing to take out Americans have plenty of opportunities to do so – and the latter are essentially unceasingly vulnerable to attack.

Unfortunately, an even bigger factor in our troops’ vulnerability to such violence is the refusal of their chain-of-command to recognize and understand, let alone effectively counter, the motivation behind it. For example, the commander of U.S. and other foreign forces in Afghanistan, Marine General John Allen, attributed the recent uptick in green-on-blue attacks to irritability on the part of Afghan personnel performing missions at high operational tempos while sweltering in summer heat and hungry due to the Ramadan fast. The appropriate response? In an August 24th op.ed. in the Washington Post, the general declared that, “The closer the relationship, the more secure, ultimately, our troops will be.”

Syndicated columnist Diana West has caustically observed, “Like his brothers-in-brass, Allen is all about ideology – the Counter-Insurgency (COIN) ideology. This Leftist dogma transmuted to the battlefield is founded on the Big Lie of ‘universalism,’ which takes in the absurd but also liberty-threatening belief that all cultures, all religions, all civilizations have interchangeable values and aspirations. The theory is easily disproven, but it remains a commandment of postmodern gospel.”

Pursuant to the Team Obama-approved COIN doctrine, the posture our troops in harm’s way in Afghanistan must adopt is one of doing everything possible not to give offense to the Afghans. In fact, last February, the military distributed to U.S. forces in theater a handy pocket guide entitled, “Inside the Wire Threats – Afghanistan Green on Blue.” It is all about establishing of a “bond of trust” between Afghan army and NATO personnel.

Interestingly, another document produced for the military’s use in May 2011 shows why, as a practical matter, that can’t happen. This unclassified “red team” analysis suggested that the problem is, as its title suggests, “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility.” It found, based on extensive interviews with U.S. and NATO troops, that practices inspired by, condoned or even mandatory under the brutally repressive Islamist doctrine of shariah – such as the “poor treatment and virtual slavery of women in Afghan society,” the practice of child abuse including the “raping and sodomizing of little boys” and the torture of dogs – contributed to a “cultural gap” that alienated U.S. and Western personnel from their trainees and other native counterparts.

As noted by shariah expert and blogger Andrew Bostom, one of the recommendations (albeit, the fortieth out of fifty-eight) offered by the red team for addressing this underlying problem was, clearly at variance with the COIN party line: “Better educate US soldiers in the central tenets of Islam as interpreted and practiced in Afghanistan. Ensure that this instruction is not a sanitized, politically correct training package, but rather includes an objective and comprehensive assessment of the totalitarian nature of the extreme theology practiced among Afghans.”

The Obama administration responded to this red team analysis and its findings by ordering it to be rewritten and by classifying it. Then, the COIN-compatible pocket guide was promulgated, directing in the words of the inimitable Diana West that:

“1) U.S. troops are to walk on eggs and refrain from saying or doing anything that might set off their armed, ‘hair-trigger moderate’ Afghan counterparts: ‘Avoid public rebukes,’ troops are told. ‘Counsel in private jointly with [the Afghan army] chain of command’….

“2) Worse, U.S. troops are ordered to assume the age-old role of the dhimmis, those wretched, self-censoring non-Muslims repressed and stunted by Islamic law: ‘Respect Islam, Koran or a mosque; Afghan women, elders and children. Avoid arrogance; i.e., belief that ISAF culture is superior to Afghan culture.'”

Whatever we call such behavior – “politically correct,” “multicultural,” “diversity-minded” or simply “sensitive” – our enemies perceive it through the lens of their culture and, more importantly, the doctrine that governs it, namely shariah. Specifically, they understand it for what it is: submission. And, according to that doctrine, the appropriate response to an infidel enemy’s submission is more violence to make him, as the Quran puts it, “feel subdued.”

Accordingly, if we persist in this submissiveness, far from winning Afghan hearts and minds, we are likely to put not just our troops there at ever greater risk. We will invite our foes to engage in more jihadist violence elsewhere, including here.

On May 12, 2011 a US Army “Red Team” issued an unclassified report which purported to explain the burgeoning rash of murderous attacks (which have since escalated even further, still) by Afghan National Army (ANA) members on US and other NATO troops.

Although the report is dominated by apologetic, cultural relativist drivel which attempts, in vain, to explain away these acts of murder committed against the US and NATO troops by their by ANA “allies,” it also includes a crudely buried, sub rosa truthful narrative.

This latter discussion is all that matters, and bears full, clear exposure—particularly in light of the morally cretinous excuse for the most recent spate of such killings of US troops. Specifically, General Allen in an obscene pronouncement for which he should be forced to resign, maintained that Ramadan fasting, combined with operational tempo during the summer heat, were the drivers of these most recent killings of his own troops by Muslim ANA soldiers.

Based upon extensive interviews, US and NATO troops, as the report notes, were both disgusted with, and highly (and justifiably) suspicious of, the Islamically-sanctioned practices and behaviors of their Afghan military allies, and Afghan civilians.

[Specific elaborations on Afghan Muslim treatment of dogs, women, and children; pp. 44-45] Many US soldiers were appalled by the rampant torture of dogs and puppies they witnessed while being based with ANSF units. Many ANSF members are prone to inflicting abuse onto stray dogs they bring to the base for “entertainment” purposes. Other ANSF members, while not condoning the torture, fail to see any importance in such behaviors given the standing of dogs in Islam. Dogs are seen as vermin and many ANSF members find it inexplicable that anyone could be concerned about such “trivial matters,” and deeply resent any interference…This animal abuse is a substantial psychological stressor for many US soldiers and has been the cause of many serious social altercations with ANSF members…US soldiers reported that they had observed many cases of child abuse and neglect that infuriated them and alienated them from the civilian populace. They made it very clear that they wanted nothing to do with people who treat children so cruelly. Although not reported by the US soldiers who participated in this study. There have been numerous accounts of Canadian troops in Kandahar complaining about the rampant sexual abuse of children they have witnessed ANSF personnel commit, including the cultural practice of bacha bazi, as well as the raping and sodomizing of little boys…Similarly, US soldiers…mentioned the poor treatment and virtual slavery of Women in Afghan society, and how they found such practices repugnant. They found it unpalatable to befriend other men who had such primitive beliefs; the cultural gulf was too wide. They were repulsed by the abuse and neglect they observed in how children are treated in Afghan society. US soldiers largely reported that they did not care for Afghan civilians due to these factors as well as their suspected sympathies for the insurgents.

But the most salient point—blatantly ignored throughout the feckless conduct of our mission in Afghanistan, till now, and exemplified, glaringly, by General Allen’s heinous remarks—was inserted (as item 40), non-sequitur, amongst 58 other comparatively trivial recommendations.

[p. 50] Better educate US soldiers in the central tenets of Islam as interpreted and practiced in Afghanistan. Ensure that this instruction is not a sanitized, politically correct training package, but rather includes an objective and comprehensive assessment of the totalitarian nature of the extreme theology practiced among Afghans.

As the Pentagon’s only serious and honest (and of course now former) expert on Islamic Law, Major Stephen Coughlin observed in 2007:

If the Enemy in the War on Terror (WOT) states that he fights jihad in furtherance of Islamic causes that includes the imposition of Shari’a law and the re-establishment of the Caliphate; And Islamic law on jihad exists and is available in English; Then Professionals with WOT responsibilities have an affirmative, personal, professional duty to know the enemy that includes ALL the knowable facts associated with the law of jihad.

And Coughlin, a well-trained lawyer, further argued that such understanding by our military leaders is obligatory if they are to uphold their essential commission:

This is the Professional Standard.

The Red Team report’s acknowledgement, now matter how grudging, of the essential role of Islamic totalitarianism in the ANA’s murderous actions against US and NATO troops, suggests our military leadership’s current dereliction of duty is even more egregious at present than when Major Coughlin shared his observations in 2007.

War On Terror: It’s now clear why so many U.S. troops have fallen prey to Afghan insider attacks: The administration disarmed them while arming their Afghan trainees, making them sitting ducks.

With U.S. and NATO troop deaths from so-called green-on-blue attacks climbing past 100, military brass last week reversed a standing order requiring troops to remove their magazines from their weapons while quartered inside bases with their “trusted Afghan partners.”

Rogue Afghan soldiers or police have easily gotten the jump on their trainers, shooting them in cold blood with the rifles and ammunition issued by the U.S. Ten of our troops have died this way in just the past two weeks.

The number of insider attacks this year already exceeds the total for last year. Since the start of 2012, there have been 32 attacks resulting in 40 deaths, many more than last year’s 21 total attacks.

Earlier this month, an Afghan security commander ambushed U.S. troops. The officer, who was helping U.S. special forces train the local police force, lured elite U.S. soldiers to a Ramadan meal at his outpost to talk security. He then opened fire on them at close range, killing three and wounding one.

The Taliban took credit for the attack. The terror group released a video indicating it has heavily infiltrated the Afghan national army and police force.

“I opened fire on three Americans who were sitting together,” a rogue Afghan soldier, identified as Ghazi Mahmood, says while smiling for the camera. “The reason I killed them is because they have occupied our country. They are enemies of our religion.”

He said that there are many other uniformed Afghans “looking for the opportunity to kill infidels.”

Now, after years of denying the attacks were anything but an “isolated” problem, U.S.-led command has finally let American soldiers carry loaded weapons at all times to protect them not just from terrorists but from the Afghan security forces they’re training.

The policy reversal exposes the suicidal nature of the prior order. Even as our disarmed soldiers were being systematically ambushed and gunned down by their Afghan counterparts, high command continued to co-locate entire Afghan military units inside U.S. bases.

As a gesture of trust toward these Muslim partners, commanders ordered U.S. soldiers to remove their magazines from their weapons while training and working alongside them.

The Afghans, however, were allowed to remain armed.

Further exposing them to “friendly fire,” American troops generally removed their heavy Kevlar body armor once they got inside the base.

Disarming the Afghans would have been the obvious solution. But of course that would expose this whole “training partnership” as the farce it really is.

Training and standing up a national security force in Afghanistan is the linchpin of President Obama’s withdrawal strategy. He has set a 2014 deadline for troop pullout.

But the Pentagon is already reducing troop presence by 30,000 by the end of the summer. Many of the remaining soldiers will switch from fighting to training and advising Afghan forces. This means even more of them will be exposed to insider attacks.

The grief-stricken father of a slain Marine lashed out at the U.S. training policies with the Afghan National Security Forces. His son’s death became one of many recent insider attacks leading to high-level meetings between U.S. and Afghan leader to re-evaluate their training methods.

“At the end of the day, what happened is my son trained somebody to murder him,” Greg Buckley Sr. said at the funeral Saturday for Lance Cpl. Gregory T. Buckley, 21, of Oceanside, N.Y., according to a CBS report.

The Afghan recruits “come in, they say, ‘We want to be police officers,’ and we hand them a blue uniform and hand them an AK-47? That’s insane,” the father told CBS as he stood surrounded by family and friends wearing buttons with a picture of his fallen son in uniform.

“If my son died on the battlefield, I would’ve been — maybe been — able to accept that, but instead they killed him inside the gym,” said Buckley Sr., according to CBS.

Buckley; Staff Sgt. Scott E. Dickinson, 29, of San Diego, Calif.; and Cpl. Richard A. Rivera Jr., 20 of Ventura, Calif., were shot to death on Aug. 10 while they worked out at a base gym in the southwestern Helmand province. The assailant allegedly was an unvetted 15-year-old “tea boy” who was the personal aide to the local Afghan district police chief, the Washington Post reported.

The grief and anger of Buckley’s father reflected the opinions of most Americans. Numerous recent polls have shown that a majority believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting.

While services were held for the young Marine in Long Island, N.Y., Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to curb the growing incidents of “insider attacks” by Afghans wearing uniforms that have killed at least 109 coalition troops since 2007 — 39 since January, including 25 Americans.

Another Afghan dressed in a police uniform shot and killed a NATO soldier Sunday in southern Afghanistan. It wasn’t immediately known what country the NATO soldier was from. And an Afghan police recruit killed two U.S. Special Forces trainers Aug. 17.

Panetta thanked Karzai for “condemning the attacks and the two “expressed shared concern over this issue,” said George Little, the chief Pentagon spokesman.

To counter the insider threat, Panetta and Karzai discussed measures that have already been put in place or are in the planning stage. The two called for “augmented counter-intelligence measures, even more rigorous vetting of Afghan recruits, and stepped up engagement with village elders, who often play a key role by vouching for Afghan security personnel,” Little said.

Marine Gen. John Allen, the overall Afghan commander and head of the International Security Assistance Force, has also ordered all U.S. troops in Afghanistan to carry loaded weapons with them at all times.

Buckley and the two other slain Marines were members of Kilo Co., 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which had not taken any casualties before the Aug. 10 incident in the gym. On that same day in Helmand province, three other Special Operations Marines were killed by an Afghan wearing a police uniform in a separate incident.

Capt. Matthew P. Manoukian, 29, of Los Altos Hills, Calif.; Gunnery Sgt. Ryan Jeschke, 31, of Herndon, Va.; and Staff Sgt. Sky R. Mote, 27, of El Dorado, Calif., were shot to death by an Afghan police officer with whom they had just shared a meal.

In yet another incident, U.S. military officials strongly suspect that the Afghan police recruit who killed two Special Forces trainers with a weapon just handed to him was a Taliban plant and part of a growing threat from enemy infiltrators.

The U.S. and NATO have begun a major review of the vetting process for Afghan recruits for the police and the army to include checking on the identities and loyalties of village elders and Afghan officials who are required to vouch for the trainees, the officials said.

Until recently, Pentagon and NATO officials had routinely dismissed Taliban claims to have infiltrated the ranks of the Afghan National Security Forces as idle boasts, but the recent spike in “green on blue,” or “insider,” attacks has forced commanders to rethink policy.

“We think it’s about 10 percent,” a Pentagon official said of the percentage of deadly insider attacks carried out by Taliban agents or sympathizers since January 2011.

A total of 50 attacks by Afghans in uniform had occurred in 2011 and 2012 through last Friday and killed 74 coalition troops, the vast majority of them Americans.

Three American special forces soldiers were shot dead by a man in Afghan uniform in what appeared to be the latest incident of local forces turning their weapons on their foreign allies.

French soldiers of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and an Afghan policeman Photo: EPA/S. SABAWOON

The Americans were killed after being invited to dinner to discuss security in Sangin district of Helmand on Thursday evening.

The shooting was at least the third incident this week where Afghan forces have opened fire on foreign forces.

Thursday night’s shooting appeared to be a carefully planned attack, Afghan officials said.

American special forces soldiers had been invited to break the Ramadan fast at a house in the Sarwan Qala area by a police commander called Assadullah.

During the meal they came under fire.

“During dinner, the police commander and his colleagues shot them and then fled. The commander was Afghan National Police in charge of local police in Sangin,” a senior Afghan official told the Reuters news agency.

“It looks like he had drawn up a plan to kill them previously,” the official said.